1 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
As defined by Guy Cook (1986), discourse is language used for
communication (p.6). Discourse produces successful communications and is
coherently perceived by its receivers (Cook, 1989:7). Coherence is one
characteristic of discourse. It is defined as the quality of being meaningful and
unified (Cook, 1989:7). Besides coherence, discourse is also characterized by the
presence of cohesion. Cohesion indicates a condition in which one sentence to
another sentence in a discourse are linked to each other (Cook, 1989:14).
Coherence emphasizes more on the connections among the ideas brought through
the context of a discourse while cohesion focuses on the associations among the
sentences in terms of sentence construction or grammatical rules of the language
itself. One element of discourse that functions to provide coherence and cohesion
is called cohesive devices. They serve to link one sentence to another, making a
discourse meaningful, unified, and purposive. In other words, they create cohesion
and coherence in the discourse performed, making a communication successful.
Traditionally, discourse is distinguished into two categories: spoken and
written (Cook, 1989:50). Newspaper is an example of a medium of
communication built up by such a complex written discourse, consisting of many
variations of cohesive devices. The lack of mastery of cohesive devices might
result in an inability to comprehend the information conveyed by the news
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devices will help Indonesian readers of English newspaper have a better
comprehension which will lead to more effective and useful reading as summed
up by Fisher and Peters (1981), who says “truly fluent readers are familiar with a variety of structural or cohesive devices that occur in discourse” (p. 45).
An excelled comprehension of cohesive devices is a positive asset to
possess related to the fact that news has been a part of many people’s lifestyle.
Through news, people update their information about factual and actual events.
Those events are the ones that can be regarded and presented as newsworthy
(Fowler, 1991:13). As news keeps providing new information daily, it never loses
its charm and is always waited by the people from various backgrounds who
always crave and want to get new information. News is so powerful that it is
defined as a representation of the world in language (Fowler, 1991:4).
Jakarta Post and Guardian are examples of two credible newspapers.
Jakarta Post is an Indonesian newspaper that has constantly published news
written in English for years. Published for the first time on April 25th 1983, the newspaper’s main goal is to improve the standard of English language media in
Indonesia. It is a reputable publisher which has already gained and maintained
reputation throughout the nation. Guardian is a British national daily newspaper
whose credibility has also been proven globally. It has existed for almost 200
years. Founded by John Edward Taylor in 1821, it was firstly a local newspaper
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1999, 2006, 2011, and 2014. The newspaper also won Pulitzer Award in 2014,
which is the highest honor in US journalism.
Responding to the development of the Internet, news has gone online and
both newspapers, Jakarta Post and Guardian, have now owned and run an online
newspaper which can be accessed easily so that the readers around the world don’t have to buy the printed newspapers in order to read their work. Instead, they can
make use of their gadgets and the Internet to search for online news. This
indicates that although the era has transformed into the digital one, many people’s desire to upgrade their information daily through reading news remains the same,
and that desire is well facilitated by both newspapers.
Several sections are included in the newspapers and those generally
include a sport section. Jakarta Post and Guardian also publish sport news.
Football is one popular subject that is reported in the sport section of a newspaper.
It is hard to deny the fact that football is one of the most favorite sports in the
world (Szymanski, 2014:1), including in Indonesia and England. It is loved by
people from all genders and levels of age. Many who are keen on it always stay
up-to-date by reading news carrying the information about what is new in football.
Related to that fact, football always received the biggest attention in the sport
section of these two newspapers.
Related to news, the students of English language in formal education
institutions, including in the English Department of Widya Mandala, are required
to study a text genre called news item to improve their writing skills. For the final
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they are expected to be able to write news articles. Therefore, having students
acknowledge the use of cohesive devices from news, including football news, can
facilitate them to learn from the authentic and real-life material. In line with that,
in the classroom, during the process of teaching and learning of news items, the
lecturers and teachers in charge can explain thoroughly and comprehensively
about the use of cohesive devices building up news through presenting the real
examples in the form of online football news or any news with different topic.
After gaining knowledge from the real examples of news, students then will
hopefully be competent to construct sentences using cohesive devices correctly,
fostering their ability to create cohesion and coherence in their writing skill.
Eventually, they will expectedly become more capable of producing more
excellent and accomplished news and master the proper ways to write this genre
of text. Mastering to use cohesive devices properly means mastering most of
language features required to compose news articles; therefore, to do so will be
extremely beneficial for the students.
There is also a big advantage if the lecturers and teachers in charge
present football news. Football news differs from the news containing the theories
and specific terms of politics, law, economy, conflict, and other more difficult
topics or fields as football news is usually constructed with simpler words and
terms. Difficult topics will frustrate students, while the topic of football, which is
5 1.2 Research Problems
Related to the title and the background of this research, these are the
research problems formulated by the researcher:
1. From the analyzed data source in the form of online football news articles
taken from Jakarta Post and Guardian, what kinds of cohesive devices were
used by the journalists?
2. Based on their percentages which show their contributions, how did the
cohesive devices rank for the data source taken from both Jakarta Post and
Guardian?
3. After the percentages had been compared, were there any similarities or
differences in how the cohesive devices ranked for the data source taken from
Jakarta Post and the one for Guardian?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
In line with the research problems mentioned before, the objectives of
this research include:
1. To identify, classify, and calculate the percentages showing the contributions of
the cohesive devices used to construct sentences and create both cohesion and
coherence in the football news taken as the data source.
2. To compare the percentages showing the contributions of the cohesive devices
(referring expressions, repetitions, conjunctions, parallelism, substitutions, and
ellipsis) and to identify the tenses that influenced the verb forms constructing
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similarities or differences in how those devices contributed in the data source
of both newspapers.
3. To list and provide readers with the examples of how the cohesive devices were
used by the journalists in the making of the data source as well as to show the
readers how cohesive devices work to build up written discourse in online
football news in general.
1.4 Theoretical Framework
Cohesion and coherence in discourse
One characteristic of discourse is unity. Cohesion and coherence are two
features that can result in unity. Related to these features, a discourse must have
formal links operating between clauses and sentences. These formal links are
known as cohesive devices. These devices will lead to successions of sentences as
they create cohesion and coherence. They also show that a discourse is not
constructed by disconnected jumbles. Instead, it is built by stretches of language
that have a meaning and a unity (Cook, 1989:14).
The classification of cohesive devices proposed by Guy Cook
There are seven cohesive devices that can be used to build up a discourse
(Cook, 1989:15-21): referring expression, repetition, conjunction, parallelism,
substitution, ellipsis, verb form. The researcher also referred to some other experts
and their theories to study deeper about these devices. The example is that the
researcher referred to the theories of the classification of pronouns (referring
expressions), conjunctions, and parallelism by Marcella Frank (1972) to limit this
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some other experts. Further details about those experts and their theories are
presented in the second chapter.
1.5 Significance of the Study
The significance of this research is categorized into two; theoretical and
practical.
Theoretical
Cohesive devices are significant tools to make a discourse fulfill its
nature to be meaningful and unified. Without the presence of these devices,
sentences across a discourse will be less connected and the messages delivered
are likely to be misunderstood, making the discourse fail as a language for
communicative use. Online football news is an example of a written discourse
widely read by people around the world, which means that cohesive devices
definitely feature there. In line with that, this research is expected to prove the
existence and importance of cohesive devices in online football news and show
how these devices operate in the sentences across the news to establish a
discourse full of unity, confirming the Cook’s theory which states that these devices result in successions of sentences in a discourse (1989:14).
Practical
Practical significance of this research is explained in the following:
1. This research is aimed for the lecturers and teachers who teach news item
in writing class or writing session in formal educational institutions,
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news item is taught in the course named Writing II. The researcher hopes
that this study is able to encourage the lecturers and teachers to use and
present about online news, which can be in the form of online football
news articles or any other news reporting different topics, as a real-life
learning media through which students will observe, learn, and acquire the
necessary skills in producing news. Using online news as a teaching
material, lecturers and teachers can present some language features that are
essential in constructing news, especially cohesive devices. Ultimately,
lecturers and teachers can urge the students to refer to the news that has
been presented while they are practicing writing the news. The lecturers
who teach discourse, especially about cohesive devices that function as
formal links in certain discourse, can also present news to give the real
examples of how the devices work in written discourse in the form of news
articles. By doing so, lecturers can expect students’ better understanding
about cohesive devices as they have been shown how these devices work
in real-life and authentic materials. This way is hopefully more effective
for the lecturers than merely relying on the text book while teaching
cohesive devices as an integral part of a discourse.
2. Not only does this research inform the lecturers and teachers in charge of
teaching news item, but hopefully it will also motivate the students who
learn to master the writing of news item to look up at the real examples of
news while practicing and trying to produce news articles of their own. By
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to comprehend some language features of news, including cohesive
devices, and eventually write as closely as possible as the real journalists
who can produce news articles full of cohesion and coherence. The
students who learn about formal links in discourse analysis are also
informed so that they will practice analyzing how cohesive devices linking
sentences in a certain discourse, especially the written one. Doing such a
way will result in a higher level of understanding while they study about
the devices.
3. This research is also targeted to encourage English learners in general to
make use of news as a learning media from which they can learn some
vocabulary and grammatical features through the cohesive devices. As
examples, from repetitions used by the writers, readers can learn about
new vocabularies whereas the cohesive devices in the forms of parallelism
and conjunctions can teach readers about grammatical features and
sentence constructions applied in such a wide context.
4. At last but not least, this research is meant to inform Indonesian journalists
and those people who intend to be journalists, especially the ones dealing
with English columns or hired by English language-based mass media,
about the variations of cohesive devices that can be used in writing news
and encourage them to use various cohesive devices in more creative
manners in order to improve their writings so that it can result in a
10 1.6 Limitation and Scope of the Study
The data source compiled was in the form of online football news
published by Jakarta Post and Guardian dating from December 5th to December 14th 2015. All of the news taken reported football events covering Barclays Premier League and UEFA Champions League only.
The analysis of the cohesive devices was mostly based on Guy Cook’s theory (1989) supported by other supportive theories from some other experts.
According to Cook, these devices include referring expressions, repetitions,
conjunctions, parallelism, substitutions, ellipsis, and verb forms.
Six of these devices, consisting of referring expressions, repetitions,
conjunctions, parallelism, substitutions, and ellipsis, were identified and counted.
Eventually, the percentages showing the contributions of each of them were
formulated. Then, the rankings indicating their contribution in the articles taken as
the data source from both online newspapers were figured out and compared.
Verb forms received different treatment. Instead of finding the
percentages of the verb forms, the researcher focused more on finding what tenses
besides past tense that influenced the verb forms in the data source. The result of
the analysis of the verb forms was not in the figures of percentages, but in the
explanations related to the kinds of tenses that had influence on the verb forms
and constructed the sentences in the news articles taken as the data source.
Some cohesive devices followed further limitations as explained in the
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1. Referring expressions were categorized into several pronouns that consisted of
subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive adjective, possessive pronouns,
reflexive pronouns, and demonstrative pronouns.
2. To set the classification of pronouns as the referring expressions, the researcher
also referred to pronoun theory presented by Marcela Frank in her book
entitled “Modern English: A Practical Reference Guide” published in 1972.
3. Repetitions were divided into repetitions using the same word and repetitions
using different words or phrases. Repetitions identified only covered the ones
that referred to particular noun and noun phrases that commonly become
subjects of the news in online football articles. These nouns and noun phrases
include football players, football clubs, clubs’ managers, coaches, and staff, and also the supporters. The reason was that journalists of football articles can
use repetitions in various possibilities and ways every time they have to
provide the repetitions for those nouns or noun phrases. In the following are the
examples that show how journalists can replace those nouns and noun phrases
with many kinds of options:
Table 1.1 Examples of How Journalists Use Various Kinds of Repetitions in Online Football News Articles
Example of nouns or noun
phrases
Repetitions Using the Same Words
Repetitions Using Different Words or
Phrases
Football Player Harry Kane Harry Kane or Kane
The 22-year-old striker. Spurs’ most prolific
goal-scorer the lethal forward the club’s leading goal
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Football Club Arsenal F.C. Arsenal
the North London club / the North Londoners the FA Cup’s reigning champions
“The Gunner” (nickname)
Football Manager, Coach, or Staff
Jurgen Klopp Jurgen Klopp or Klopp
the German tactician the 48-year-old Liverpool manager the former Dortmund
manager the stylish coach “the normal one”
(nickname)
The Supporters Arsenal
supporters Arsenal supporters
Arsenal fans “Gooners” (nickname
for male supporters) “Goonerettes” (nickname for female
supporters)
Those are only a few examples of how these nouns and noun phrases can be
repeated in many ways by the journalists. Based on that fact, this research
focused only on these nouns in this research.
4. Conjunctions analyzed were classified into two: coordinate and subordinate
conjunctions.
5. Parallelism was grouped into nominal and adjectival parallelism as they are
common to construct sentences of news while other more complex parallelism,
such as sound or phonological parallelism, are not likely to be found in news as
they often become parts of literary works such as poems.
6. The same as the one of referring expressions, to set the classifications of
conjunctions and parallelism, the researcher also referred to and got supports
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7. The analysis began in the first line of the news articles up to the last line, which
means that the titles of the news articles were not included in the analysis.
1.7 Definition of Key Terms
1. Cohesive Devices
One component of discourse in the form of formal links that connect sentences
and phrases to generate cohesion and facilitate coherence to take place,
resulting in unity found in the discourse (Cook, 1989)
2. Online Football News
A representation of the world of football in language through which
newsworthy events selected by such complex criteria are presented and brought
to the readers from around the world by the journalists using the means of the
Internet
3. Jakarta Post
A leading English-language newspaper in Indonesia owned by PT. Bina Media
Tenggara which was firstly published in April 25th, 1983 and has constantly published news written in English ever since to improve the standard of
English language media in Indonesia (Wati and Ariyanti, 2013)
4. Guardian
A credible British national daily newspaper founded by John Edward Taylor in
1821 that has won several journalism awards such as British Press Awards
14 1.8 Organization of the Thesis
This research includes five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction of this
research that presents the background of the study, research problems, objective of
the study, theoretical framework, significance of the study, limitation and the
scope of the study, definition of the key terms, and organization of the study.
Chapter 2 is composed of review of related literature that mostly explain about
discourse, news as a part of discourse, and cohesive devices with their functions
and examples. Similar studies are also attached in this chapter. Chapter 3 contains
the research method on which the researcher based his work orders to complete
this research. Chapter 4, the most important part of this research, explains in
details about the results of data analysis as well as the discussion of the findings.
Chapter 5, the last chapter consists of the conclusion of the research extracted
from the researcher’s findings and in this chapter also, the researcher writes down
his suggestions for whom he thinks can get the benefits from the significance of
this research. Besides all of those chapters, there is also appendix in which the
researcher includes all of the articles compiled as the data source and the
identification tables. The researcher also completely lists all of the references on
